Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Why are we Irish so obsessed with the Israel-Palestine conflict?

Options
24

Comments

  • Options
    #32
    conorhal
    Registered Users Posts: 6,987 ✭✭✭conorhal


    karma_ wrote: »
    Nonsense to be honest. Ireland has always leaned more to the right-wing.

    How many blue-shirts headed off to fight for Franco? More than headed off to fight against fascism for sure.

    I openly admit my left wing leanings, I'm also a pacifist and not much of a patriot, and I have never made excuses for an atrocity in my life.

    I guess that doesn't fit into your grand scheme of things.

    What are you talking about? FG have never had much time for the Northern nationalist narrative and tt's not the right wingers that tend to be waving Palestinian flags or organizing aid flotillas now is it, for the most part it's the shinners for and ideological left wingers.
    While you may be a pacifist that abhors violence, and good for you, you can't claim to be representative of a spectrum of politics as a whole.


  • Options
    #33
    Laminations
    Registered Users Posts: 4,693 ✭✭✭Laminations


    karma_ wrote: »
    Nonsense to be honest. Ireland has always leaned more to the right-wing.

    How many blue-shirts headed off to fight for Franco? More than headed off to fight against fascism for sure.

    I openly admit my left wing leanings, I'm also a pacifist and not much of a patriot, and I have never made excuses for an atrocity in my life.

    I guess that doesn't fit into your grand scheme of things.

    But you are pro Palestinian? You must in some way excuse atrocities if you take that position? The divisiveness if this conflict is something that perpetuates it


  • Options
    #34
    prinz
    Registered Users Posts: 14,598 ✭✭✭✭prinz


    alastair wrote: »
    A 'fashion' that's lasted a good 40 years at this stage?

    It comes and goes but it is ever present to some degree.
    karma_ wrote: »
    Nonsense to be honest. Ireland has always leaned more to the right-wing. How many blue-shirts headed off to fight for Franco? More than headed off to fight against fascism for sure..

    Roughly 700 went to fight for Franco. As many as 70,000 from the Free State are thought to have gone abroad the fight the fascists in WWII...


  • Options
    #35
    Laminations
    Registered Users Posts: 4,693 ✭✭✭Laminations


    I think the reason the Israeli-Palestinian conflict results in such long threads is because it is divisive, two sides believing vehemently that they are right, just like the conflict itself. Taking sides simplifies the conflict and we end up with a 'who threw the first stone' debate, if people could overlook this and recognise there is a hail if stones in play now (and before someone tries to say one side has stones, the other rockets, I'm talking about mindsets and feelings towards the other as opposed to military superiority) the conflict in threads as well as in the region would be moved towards peace. Both sides need to acknowledge their roles in this conflict


  • Options
    #36
    nacho libre
    Registered Users Posts: 16,678 ✭✭✭✭nacho libre


    Laminations wrote: »
    But you are pro Palestinian? You must in some way excuse atrocities if you take that position? The divisiveness if this conflict is something that perpetuates it

    what is your motivation for framing it this way? is it possible to be pro human rights, equality and liberty.
    if those are ideals exclusive to the left then that is what epouse. however, i would assume everyone in this thread is not opposed to any of three.

    what we are at loggerheads over is israel guilty of infracting these ideals?
    i think they are this does not mean i condone atrocities against them.

    just to add would you accuse B'tselem of being 'pro palestinian' therefore they must condone atrocities against Israel?


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #37
    IrishTonyO
    Registered Users Posts: 2,321 ✭✭✭IrishTonyO


    FlutterinBantam wrote: »
    No I wouldn't,to be honest.

    I'm quite sure the ordinary Joe and Joan trying to pay a mortgage and keep their heads above water, would certainly not be too exercised about a situation 2000kms away and fuelled by a terrorist regime,who although democratically elected,are bent on the destruction of an adjoining state.

    I'd say Joe and Joan would much more concerned about the former situation sir.

    I wouldn't agree with that, I think the majority of Irish people have a large inbuilt sense of fairness decency and morality. We are not the largest donors to charity per capita of any country in the world for nothing. And when we see injustice etc we want to do something about it.


  • Options
    #38
    gandalf
    Registered Users Posts: 26,458 ✭✭✭✭gandalf


    reprazant wrote: »
    To all the people mentioning the Irish Army Peacekeeping forces being in the Leb, why do they not have the same interest in the happenings in Liberia, Congo, Chad, Rwanda or Darfur to name just a few off the top of my head?

    While I realise that the aid flotilla is in the news now, hence the large thread, but when the latest horror story appears from the Congo or Darfur, there is barely a thread, if at all, on it.

    Also, I don't think that it is just an Irish thing. Anything which happens in Israel/Palestine gets far more press, both local and international, then anything that would happen in Africa or Asia, or anywhere else in the Middle East for that matter.

    I suppose the reason is the Irish Army spent 23 years in large numbers constantly in the Lebanon. It was on the news when I grew up regularly in late 70's, 80's and 1990's.

    The Congo deployment was not really mentioned because of Siege of Jadoville which up until recently was seen as a stain on the Irish Armies reputation. I only found out about it because I worked in the late 80's with someone who was there.

    The other deployments don't seem to have warranted the media attention that the Lebanon deployment did, maybe because of the deployment size or the length of the deployment or even because there were very few incidents on them.

    As you say it could also because of the large amount of newspaper columns that Israel generates in the International media as well.


  • Options
    #39
    Laminations
    Registered Users Posts: 4,693 ✭✭✭Laminations


    nacho libre wrote: »
    what is your motivation for framing it this way? is it possible to be pro human rights, equality and liberty.
    if those are ideals exclusive to the left then that is what epouse. however, i would assume everyone in this thread is not opposed to any of three.

    what we are at loggerheads over is israel guilty of infracting these ideals?
    i think they are this does not mean i condone atrocities against them.

    Yes that is the ideal position, it's the position I like to think I uphold, and from this position I can see atrocities against human rights, equality and liberty from both sides. It's mad to be arguing with someone who pretends or believes Israel isn't guilty if atrocities but to entrench yourself on the Palestinian side means in some way you must be overlooking the atrocities committed by Palestinian groups. The entire conflict is a human rights disaster, taking sides is not taking the side of human rights


  • Options
    #40
    mrboswell
    Registered Users Posts: 1,188 ✭✭✭mrboswell


    For me, I HATE bullies.

    Like a lot of other posters have said there are a lot of parallels with Ireland.

    Take peoples land, restrict their movement, kill their relatives, wait for them to react and defend themselves or even avenge a loved one.
    When they do so then call them terrorists.

    Might have something to do with that.


  • Options
    #41
    ballsymchugh
    Registered Users Posts: 7,936 ✭✭✭ballsymchugh


    danbohan wrote: »
    so that would explain why loylists fly Israeli flags ,provies on left ornges with the facists

    the funnier side to this is that the loyalist groups that flew the israeli flag have ties to far right groups in the UK, like combat 18 (those friendly guys that rioted in lansdowne road in 1995), who hold among their heroes one Mr Hitler. i wonder how confused he'd be looking at the associates north of the border.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #42
    Laminations
    Registered Users Posts: 4,693 ✭✭✭Laminations


    mrboswell wrote: »
    For me, I HATE bullies.

    Like a lot of other posters have said there are a lot of parallels with Ireland.

    Take peoples land, restrict their movement, kill their relatives, wait for them to react and defend themselves or even avenge a loved one.
    When they do so then call them terrorists.

    Might have something to do with that.

    And a capiitalised HATE will solve this how?


  • Options
    #43
    karma_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,798 ✭✭✭karma_


    Laminations wrote: »
    But you are pro Palestinian? You must in some way excuse atrocities if you take that position? The divisiveness if this conflict is something that perpetuates it

    I'm pro-doing the right thing, and in this instance Israel is not doing the right thing. They are punishing 1.5million people for the sins of a few. Internment didn't work in Northern Ireland it just drove more into teh ranks of the IRA. This blockade is counter productive, as is letting the settlers expand.


  • Options
    #44
    karma_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,798 ✭✭✭karma_


    prinz wrote: »
    It comes and goes but it is ever present to some degree.



    Roughly 700 went to fight for Franco. As many as 70,000 from the Free State are thought to have gone abroad the fight the fascists in WWII...

    I was specifically referring to teh Spanish civil war.


  • Options
    #45
    mrboswell
    Registered Users Posts: 1,188 ✭✭✭mrboswell


    Laminations wrote: »
    And a capiitalised HATE will solve this how?

    It won't. It shows how strongly I hate bullies, of any kind.

    Nothing to say about the rest of my post?


  • Options
    #46
    nacho libre
    Registered Users Posts: 16,678 ✭✭✭✭nacho libre


    Laminations wrote: »
    Yes that is the ideal position, it's the position I like to think I uphold, and from this position I can see atrocities against human rights, equality and liberty from both sides. It's mad to be arguing with someone who pretends or believes Israel isn't guilty if atrocities but to entrench yourself on the Palestinian side means in some way you must be overlooking the atrocities committed by Palestinian groups. The entire conflict is a human rights disaster, taking sides is not taking the side of human rights

    you missed my late edit: i don't think it's accurate to say someone who highlights Israeli actions is automatically guilty of being entrenched on one side and therefore is turning a blind eye to atrocities commited by the palestinians.
    for instance i have never heard of amnesty international or B'tselem trying to condone suicide bombings or hamas rocket attacks.


  • Options
    #47
    Laminations
    Registered Users Posts: 4,693 ✭✭✭Laminations


    karma_ wrote: »
    I'm pro-doing the right thing, and in this instance Israel is not doing the right thing. They are punishing 1.5million people for the sins of a few. Internment didn't work in Northern Ireland it just drove more into teh ranks of the IRA. This blockade is counter productive, as is letting the settlers expand.

    Yep I too am against the blockade and the occupation but this does not make me pro Palestinian. I asked you if you were pro Palestinian then how do you justify the atrocities Palestinian groups have committed? Because you did say you didn't make excuses for atrocities. You can take the position of being anti-conflict


  • Options
    #48
    Laminations
    Registered Users Posts: 4,693 ✭✭✭Laminations


    mrboswell wrote: »
    It won't. It shows how strongly I hate bullies, of any kind.

    Nothing to say about the rest of my post?

    Yes I do actually. Like all side takers in this debate you simplify the conflict and demonise the enemy, lengthening threads and the conflict itself in a similar manner. You think one side is right, I think both sides are wrong, arguing about the magnitude of wrongness only delays peace


  • Options
    #49
    fontanalis
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭fontanalis


    Laminations wrote: »
    Yes that is the ideal position, it's the position I like to think I uphold, and from this position I can see atrocities against human rights, equality and liberty from both sides. It's mad to be arguing with someone who pretends or believes Israel isn't guilty if atrocities but to entrench yourself on the Palestinian side means in some way you must be overlooking the atrocities committed by Palestinian groups. The entire conflict is a human rights disaster, taking sides is not taking the side of human rights

    Sums it up perfectly. I truely believe this region and conflict will be the reason for the end of the human race.


  • Options
    #50
    Deep Easterly
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,150 ✭✭✭Deep Easterly


    BlaasForRafa wrote: »
    Also the Sinn Fein supporters on here seem to be virulent supporters of the palestinians which may have something to do with the northern Ireland question but also may have something to do with the fact that both campaigns are/were associated with terrorist groups and have had support from middle-eastern and/or arab countries.

    Probably the most pathetic and groundless response I have read so far :rolleyes:

    Have you seriously any idea why 'terrorism' exists in the first place? Have you any idea what terrorism is in the first place? or are you just happy to accept the label thrown onto certain groups that serves no purpose except to vilify them and demean their cause to nothing more than sheer pleasure?


  • Options
    #51
    RDM_83 again
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,116 ✭✭✭RDM_83 again


    IMO this is why the issue is so news worthy because people acting for what they though of as the greater good caused this issue.

    Also since the reign of Constantine the 1st the Holy land has been a focus of European attention. Jerusalem has a massive historic cultural image.

    On a side note always wondered why the the point of the amount of time that the Jews have been rulers/majority people/Significant minority of the "Isreal" area throughout history is less than the people they are kicking out to claim their historic homeland.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #52
    prinz
    Registered Users Posts: 14,598 ✭✭✭✭prinz


    Laminations wrote: »
    Yes I do actually. Like all side takers in this debate you simplify the conflict and demonise the enemy, lengthening threads and the conflict itself in a similar manner. You think one side is right, I think both sides are wrong, arguing about the magnitude of wrongness only delays peace


    +1. Which undermines all the groups who want peace/resolution etc but at the same time begin from a completely one-sided position.


  • Options
    #53
    wes
    Registered Users Posts: 11,747 ✭✭✭✭wes


    Laminations wrote: »
    And a capiitalised HATE will solve this how?

    How exactly will anyone comments on a message board solve anything?!? I am very confused here.... :confused:


  • Options
    #54
    sceptre
    Registered Users Posts: 19,608 ✭✭✭✭sceptre


    And again, bolded for your convenience:
    sceptre wrote: »
    Veering close to a discussion on the actual conflict in a small few posts folks. There are other places for that, please keep the wheels away from the ditch.

    /mod

    It's not difficult to remember, if people ignore it I'll assume you're not interested in following basic and obvious requests and act accordingly. What this thread is about is the interest/fascination with the conflict, not the conflict itself.


  • Options
    #55
    Deep Easterly
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,150 ✭✭✭Deep Easterly


    prinz wrote: »
    +1. Which undermines all the groups who want peace/resolution etc but at the same time begin from a completely one-sided position.

    I agree that both sides are not completely right, but to give both sides the same level of wrongness is just a neat way to dumb-down the aggressive acts of one and vindicate even more the other.


  • Options
    #56
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    This is a thread about the Irish obsession with the Israel-Palestine conflict, not a thread about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Please stay on topic, however obsessed you are.

    moderately,
    Scofflaw


  • Options
    #57
    mrboswell
    Registered Users Posts: 1,188 ✭✭✭mrboswell


    Laminations wrote: »
    Yes I do actually. Like all side takers in this debate you simplify the conflict and demonise the enemy, lengthening threads and the conflict itself in a similar manner. You think one side is right, I think both sides are wrong, arguing about the magnitude of wrongness only delays peace

    I don't think one side is right.
    As I commented previously, a lot of it relates to things that happened to Irish people.

    I, and I imagine a great deal of Irish people, believe that although a small proportion of an oppressed population may take extreme actions against its oppressor, it does not justify disregarding the human rights of the whole oppressed population.


  • Options
    #58
    walshb
    Registered Users Posts: 54,991 ✭✭✭✭walshb


    It is not just Israel and Palestine that we are obsessed with. Ireland have been sticking their oar in all over the world into other countries affairs. It's been going on for many years now.
    Marvelous little country we are.


  • Options
    #59
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    I note the two mod warnings in the past few posts, and suggest that it is difficult to address the question without indicating where one stands on the conflict. I'll try: the Middle-East conflict is the most dangerous of all the conflicts we have witnessed since WW2. It is the wedge that drives the western world and the Islamic world apart, and it is an issue that could trigger a bigger war than we have ever seen before.

    So yes, I am very interested in what happens. It threatens my life.


  • Options
    #60
    irishh_bob
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,700 ✭✭✭irishh_bob


    Sleepy wrote: »
    I think a lot of it is to do with the American/British support of Israel. Were the Israeli actions being carried out by any other state it's safe to say there'd have been UN sanctions against the perpetrators for years, if not decades.

    i think this is the crux of the matter , tutsis in rwanda or congoleese millitants dont have the unconditional support of the strongest nation on earth , as such , the israeli - pallestinian conflict garners a lot more publicity


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #61
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    walshb wrote: »
    It is not just Israel and Palestine that we are obsessed with. Ireland have been sticking their oar in all over the world into other countries affairs. It's been going on for many years now.
    Marvelous little country we are.

    Jaysus forbid we lift our snouts from the trough now and again to assist our fellows in worse straits than ourselves......


This discussion has been closed.
Advertisement